"The greatest kosher wine I've ever tasted"

By Richard Ehrlich

Jeff Morgan is responsible for Covenant Cabernet Sauvignon, widely regarded as the greatest kosher wine made in the United States - and sometimes the world. It is certainly the greatest kosher wine I have ever tasted. So he seemed an ideal person to answer questions about kosher wine-making.

The first concerned pricing. Kosher wines are often relatively expensive, and I assumed that the wine-making requirements acc-ounted for the extra cost.

Not necessarily, says Morgan. There are additional expenses, such as paying the local certifying rabbinate and buying equipment to perform mechanised operations automatically on Shabbat. But they are not that important. Keeping kosher in the winery, he went on, is less about expense than inconvenience. Finding Sabbath-observant Jews who know their way around fermentation tanks and barrel cellars - that's a problem. Many holy days fall in the winemaking season- that's a problem.